STEIN RØNNING "Epicurean Allegory"

In these works, the materials have been the subject of research and investigation behind their traditionally modern function as a neutral basis for artistic gestures and signs; – whether there are connotations in the materials and their bonds and composition that can be brought into dialog with the expressive and linguistic function of the artworks. The title of the exhibition, Epicurean Allegory, suggests a pictorial narrative about material conditions.

“For me, this is the first compilation of these images and sculptures where they are shown in the same perspective. I think it’s a matter of looking under what is linguistically coded and into the materials – as they are no longer infinitely open and accessible. I think it’s about a puncture of the romantic modern image, where everything is seen as open, possible and accessible and where we in the language are separated from and floating over the surroundings. I think it’s about the inside and outside, absorption and reflection – and about the material things that are somewhere in between” – Stein Rønning, January 2022

A limited edition catalogue will be published on the occasion of the exhibition.

Stein Rønning (b. 1953) in Askim, Norway, received his artistic education from The Trondheim Academy of Fine Art and Vestlandets Kunstakademi in Bergen. After several decades of teaching and holding professorships at Oslo National Academy of the Arts and Bergen Academy of Arts and Design, Rønning has exhibited regularly in recent years, as well as publishing a series of smaller publications and two monographs. In his work he pursues an interest in combining painting, photography and object. His photographic prints seem to camouflage as painted surfaces and the finely tuned nuances among the works themselves command a heightened sense of attention in the viewer, as well as a calibration of the exhibition space. Rønning employs a similar complex and conceptual approach to his long-standing and meandering series of sculptures in various materials as plaster and cellulose coated with pigments and polymers, as well as patinated cast bronze.

Stein Rønning lives and works in Oslo.